Balancing creative tensions needed for classroom productivity with what maintains classroom peace . . .

Active Peace

“Know what belongs to your peace.”?Jesus would have us know conceptually what the elements of peace are. He also wants us to experience the peace that passes understanding.

The peace Jesus wills us applies directly to the school. How does peace look at 10 a.m. on Wednesday??Can we recognize it when we see it? Do we notice when it is missing? Do we know how to cultivate it among our students?

Peace is not the absence of activity. That would be death. Young lives are active and require growth and change. And stress. By its very nature, the school day is designed to introduce stress into children’s lives, in the form of problems. As soon as the day is under way, we give children problems to solve: problems they will be able to complete only with serious concentration, with difficulty, and often not without help. Yet we expect peace to reign.

Peace involves ordered activity, cooperation, and harmony with productivity. The lack of peace is characterized by chaos, friction, and cacophony with disintegration. The teacher must be able to look on the activities of the classroom or playground and discern, “Is it peace?” One cannot evaluate a classroom atmosphere entirely by the number of people out of their seats or the decibel level. There is a project-building noise that is harmoniously productive and a silence that is ominous, tense, and deathly. One cannot evaluate the peacefulness of a dodge ball game by the velocity of the balls, the throws per minute, or the noise level. The spirit of a game can range from war to disorder to exhilarating fun. The teacher must know what belongs to peace and what belongs to disorder so he or she can intervene to help restore peace in the midst of the activity. How can we maintain a spirit of peace throughout the variety of activities a school day brings?

We begin by cultivating a healthy classroom atmosphere, one that is . . .   
a. Hopeful and expectant; a place where everyone senses and expects that “good things happen here”; a place where students experience success and learn.   
b. Open and inviting; a place where it is all right to ask real questions and offer answers and comments in class discussions.   
c. Helpful and encouraging; where students apply themselves and do their best. But it is also safe to make mistakes without being ridiculed.   
d. Relaxed and pleasant, yet work-oriented, with a healthy stress that stimulates children to do their best.   
e. Active, using the energy of the pupils to accomplish the learning.   
f. A place where persons are always more important than the program, system, or plan. If students ever sense that the subject is more important to the teacher than the pupils are, they cannot bring themselves to respect the teacher.

There are some specific actions on the part of the teacher that can cultivate peace . . .   
a. Smile. Nobody likes to be around a grouch. Be sure the smile issues from the heart. Nurture your inner smile.   
b. Encourage and praise children specifically for what they do well, for behaviors they can repeat. Let them know what pleases you, whether it is waiting quietly in line, neat handwriting, or speaking clearly in answering questions.   
c. Use friendly eye contact. Children should know that you see and notice. This supervision should be a support rather than a threat. You are with them.   
d. Be a servant leader. Set the course of study as a servant, not a lord. Ask them occasionally what you can do to help them understand or solve a problem.   
e. Be efficient. Do things right. Model what you expect. But also do the right things. Do not spend so much effort doing the secondary tasks (cutting out bulletin board letters) that you don’t give enough attention to primary concerns (considering student attitudes and habits and ways to improve them).

Often when there is a lack of peace in the school, it is a symptom of some other problem that may seem to be unrelated. When things don’t go well, the first thing to always try is to do a better job of teaching. Are the lessons too hard or confusing; too easy or repetitious? Is the teacher unprepared, easily side-tracked or too demanding? In general, children who are actively involved in their lessons are at peace.

Personally, the teacher must have a balanced life. There must be adequate time for rest, relationships with people, the brotherhood, and appropriate diversion. Schoolroom problems are sometimes merely symptoms of unrest resulting from the teacher’s personal problems that unconsciously affect the people he or she is around.

There will be occasion for every teacher to ask forgiveness of his students for an inappropriate word, a disrespectful response to a student question, or a flash of anger. Acknowledging the sin or indiscretion and asking forgiveness can clear the air and build respect in the children’s hearts. But if the teacher cannot humble himself to acknowledge his wrong, or even some incorrect explanation he gave, there will not be peace. No amount of “excellent teaching” will restore relationships.

Thoughtful, purposeful supervision is another absolute requirement to maintain peace at school. Disorder breeds chaos. The teacher should choose a few important daily procedures, plan them well, and have students rehearse them until they are done right. Training children in orderly dismissal procedures, end-of-recess procedures, and classroom movement procedures tends to foster order in other proceedings throughout the day.

We serve a powerful Lord, a God of peace. But He does not step in and do what He asks us to do. When Moses was on the mountain with God receiving the Ten Commandments (Exodus 32), the children of Israel misbehaved, making the golden calf. Regardless of how important their conference was, God called a recess and informed Moses that his (Moses’) children were misbehaving and that Moses would need to go down and deal with them. There is a time to talk to God and a time to act. Often we teachers would like to restore peace by spending another hour with God in quiet, by memorizing another Bible verse, or by praying harder. But there comes a time when God says “Get off your knees and deal with the problem.” Until we take up our responsibility and act, there will be no peace. We may need to change a seating arrangement, call a parent conference, speak with a difficult student, use the rod, or appeal to the board. There is a time to pray and a time to act. If we “hold out the rod” in faith, the waters will part, and we can pass into rest.

May the Lord give us the wisdom and courage to know and experience peace, even when pressed by thronging duties. There is rest to be experienced in the midst of stress.    

—Jonas Sauder